Core conflictual relationship themes of men and women who are violent toward their partners.

The Core Conflictual Relationship Themes of men and women violent toward their partners and entering psychotherapy, students violent toward their partners, and nonviolent students (n = 84; n = 14 in each of the six groups) were compared. Men and women entering psychotherapy more often had negative Wish elements than others. The wish element was "to be loved" for 11 of the 14 student women violent toward their partners and 5 of the 14 nonviolent student women.

Cognitive and affective representations of people and MCMI-II personality psychopathology.

Hibbard, Hilsenroth, Hibbard, and Nash (1995) found that affective, but not cognitive, dimensions of object representations were related to the severity of psychopathology among outpatients. In this study, the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (Western, Barends, Leigh, Mendel, & Silbert, 1990) developed for interview data (Relationship Episodes; Luborsky, 1990) was used to assess the object representations of 33 men and 38 women entering psychotherapy. The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II was used to assess the personality traits of the 71 participants. The results support earlier findings that only affective dimensions of object representations are related to outpatient personality pathology.

Defense mechanisms development in children, adolescents, and late adolescents.

To replicate and extend Cramer's (1987) original cross-sectional study concerning the development of defense mechanisms, the Thematic Apperception Test responses of 148 students in Grades 2, 5, 8, 11, and college freshmen were collected and scored for denial, projection, and identification using Cramer's Defense Mechanisms Manual (1991). Our results supported the notion that the relative use of denial and projection decreases and identification increases as a function of grade level. The findings provide additional support for the psychoanalytic view (Freud, 1966) of an ontogenetic developmental line of defense.

Object relations in abusive partner relationships: an empirical investigation.

The Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (Westen, Barends, Leigh, Mendel, & Silbert, 1990) was used to assess four dimensions of object relations in the descriptions of relationship episodes of 41 men and 40 women entering psychotherapy and reporting physical abuse in their marital or partner relationships on the Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, 1979) and in a matched group of 13 men and 13 women reporting no partner violence. Object relations levels were lower for men and women in the abusive relationships group. No differences were found between men and women in either relationship group. The findings provide empirical support for a hypothesis developed in the clinical literature of object relations impairment among both partners in abusive relationships.

Clinical correlates of MMPI depression scales.

We investigated whether Scale 2 (Depression [D]) and the Wiggins Content Scale of Depression (DEP) of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) have different clinical correlates when only one of these two scales is elevated. According, a group of patients who elevated DEP higher than Scale 2 (DEP > 2) were compared with a group of patients who elevated Scale 2 higher than DEP (2 > DEP). The patients with DEP > 2 were rated as being less severe than the patients with 2 > DEP on the following Brief Psychiatric Rating Scales: Somatic Concern (SOM), Emotional Withdrawal (WDRA), Depressive Mood (DEP), and Blunted Affect (AFF). The patients with DEP > 2 were rated as more severe on Excitement (EXC). The patients with DEP > 2 were more likely to receive the Axis I diagnoses of: bipolar disorder, manic, and alcohol abuse. Schizophrenia was equally probable for patients in the two groups. It appears that these two MMPI scales of depression have different clinical correlates when either one scale or the other is elevated.

Measures of shame and conflict tactics: effects of questionnaire order.

In the context of a theory of the intrapsychic dynamics of violent spousal relationships, in which abuse serves to replace shame with guilt, the effect of the order of presentation of questionnaires assessing shame, guilt, narcissism and conflict tactics was considered. Among 122 male and 133 female students, a shame score was significantly higher if the student had responded first to the Conflict Tactics Scale.

Self-reported visual function and academic success: Cattell revisited.

To test the hypothesis that visual deficits might hamper college students' academic success, we examined the relationship between a reliable self-report measure of visual function and semester grades. The correlation between the Everyday Vision Questionnaire scores and the grades of 331 college students was .01, which replicates and extends the historical findings of Cattell and others.

Memories of labor and birth: reliability of post partum questionnaire reports.

The stability of reports of feelings during vaginal births was assessed in three studies. In Study I, post partum reports from 475 primiparous women who participated in a childbirth preparation program were compared to identify differences between reports completed from the day of the birth to more than six weeks after the birth. In Study II, the post partum reports of 46 primiparous and 95 multiparous women completed 1, 3, or 6 mo. after giving birth were compared. In Study III, test-retest reliabilities were calculated for post partum reports completed by 22 primiparous and 16 multiparous women during the 5th and 7th post partum weeks. In these studies, reports of pain during labor were stable.

Effects of laughter and relaxation on discomfort thresholds.

Two experiments were conducted to test the proposal that laughter is a pain antagonist. In Experiment I, thresholds for pressure-induced discomfort of 20 male and 20 female subjects were measured after each subject listened to a 20-min-long laughter-inducing, relaxation-inducing, or dull-narrative audio tape or no tape. Discomfort thresholds were higher for subjects in the laughter- and the relaxation-inducing conditions. In Experiment II, 40 female subjects were matched for pressure-induced discomfort thresholds. Their discomfort thresholds were measured after they listened to a laughter-inducing, interesting narrative, or uninteresting narrative audio tape, completed a multiplication task, or experienced no intervention. Discomfort thresholds increased for subjects in the laughter-inducing condition. Laughter, and not simply distraction, reduces discomfort sensitivity, suggesting that laughter has potential as an intervention strategy for the reduction of clinical discomfort.

Pronominalization: a linguistic facet of the maternal-paternal sensitive period.

Two studies of how parents use pronouns in describing their newborn infants are presented. Fathers more often than mothers used the neuter pronoun "it" in describing their new babies. Parents who used the neuter pronoun were more often multiparous, were more likely to have attended childbirth preparation classes, and did not differ from other parents in parenting behaviors or husband-wife communication patterns assessed six months after birth. The data suggest that pronominalization may be a linguistic component of the development of the parental role.